A virtual machine (VM) is a portion of software that when executed on appropriate hardware, creates an environment allowing the virtualization of an actual physical computer system (e.g., an application server, a a web server, etc.). The actual physical computer system is typically referred to as a “bare metal host” or “host,” “server” or “host machine” and the operating system of the host is typically referred to as the “host operating system.”
A virtual machine may function as a self-contained platform, executing its own “guest” operating system and software applications. As known in the art “guest” is another term for the virtual machine. Typically, software on the host known as a “hypervisor” (or a “virtual machine monitor” or “virtualization desktop system manager”), which is a server itself is initialized to create and run virtual machines as process on it and further manage the virtual machines. Such management includes but is not limited to, memory management, storage manipulation, quality of service, device control etc.
A management system (e.g., a host controller, manager, or engine) may function to install the packages required for the hypervisor and configure network and storage aspects and further configure the OS on the host. Upon configuration of the OS on the host, a virtual management system may function to install the hypervisor onto the host to create and run one or more VMs.